Unsolicited Advice: Ugh, For the Love of Your Deity of Choice, Put That Away!

So there I was, on the treadmill, walking my way upwards to nowhere, trying to not smell the guy who just got on the treadmill beside me. Really, this post could be about showering the month before you go to the gym – yes I’m talking to you Mr. I’m Not Even Sure HOW THE FUCK You Get to Smelling That Bad and Then Decide to Go to the Gym Man. But this post is about something else, something insidious and disturbing.

It’s about this:


1970s. Gym. Shorts.

Did you shudder? I know I did.

I innocently turned my delicate nose away from Mr. INESHTFYGTSTBATDTGTTGM and what to my eyes should appear? A cheeky middle aged man, probably a douchebag studio executive in this part of LA, wearing the above and smiling heartily at me as if to say, “Yeah little girl – you like these hairy legs, don’t you?”

No. No no no.

I reeled. I got a bit dizzy. My look of horror was palpable and horrible. Still in shock, I beheld another pair!!! ANOTHER PAIR! I’m not making this up. I write comedy, not horror.

The second pair was attached to another douche. FYI, the wearing of said shorts renders you automatically douchey. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, go directly to douche. This second male person was younger, and in pretty good shape, and looking very proud of himself - just like old dude.

Now, many horrible things have come out of Los Angeles... leggings, Grey’s Anatomy, Dov Charney. TERRIBLE THINGS. But the 1970s gym shorts as modern male apparel might just take the cake. Actually, I think I can blame the shorts on Douche Charney, as they sell them at American Apparel.

Ladies, and gents of the homo persuasion, may we please all agree to take on this problem of monumental proportions Lysistrata style? If ANY MAN ever wears these shorts, ironically or not, they get NO SEXING. For reals. I MEAN IT! NO SEXING FOR THE DISASTROUS GYM SHORTS! This cannot be allowed to catch on! Think of the children! Won’t someone please think of the children!?

Thank you.

Lucy

Unsolicited Advice: Mommy’s Little Helper Helps Me, Too

It happened so suddenly. One minute I’m surfing the net, and the next the boy has planted a terribly sexy kiss on me while asking, “Can you make dinner, baby? I’m in the middle of stuff.”

Ugh. It’s 7:30pm, I’m tired from a rather long day, and I have important stuff to do, too! Like… reruns of Golden Girls (sniff… RIP Estelle Getty) and… um… deep political analysis. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Deep political analysis.

I’m trapped. He asked so nicely. And he befuddled my brain with sweet, sincere kissing and words of love. Damn him!

I turn to the only thing that gets me through housework. I can’t imagine why I didn’t discover it years ago. Is it meditation? Fun iPod music? No, friends. It’s liquor. Better known as Mommy’s Little Helper.

Scrubbing toilets, doing laundry, Swiffer-ing, cleaning the litter box, getting up in the morning – these are horrid chores which no sane person would enjoy. Booze injects a lovely haze of pseudo-fun on the activities.

In June of last year, Tulsa, Oklahoma unearthed a car they had buried in 1957 as a time capsule of sorts. From MSNBC:

“The contents of a “typical” woman’s handbag, including 14 bobby pins, lipstick and a bottle of tranquilizers, were supposed to be in the glove box [of the car], but all that was found looked like a lump of rotted leather.”

1957 Female Checklist:
14 Bobby Pins
Lipstick
Bottle of Tranquilizers

June Cleaver was high, bitches. There is no other explanation. Not even in the 50s was housework fun, no matter how many times the Home Ec. teacher tried to convince you it was. I would use tranquilizers, as a tribute to my sisters of yesteryear, only I must be the only person in LA who doesn’t have one of those doctors who prescribes Vicodin for a toe stubbing.

So our Brutally Honest advice for today, my lovelies, is to have a wee cocktail before vacuuming or cleaning cat vomit or doing your taxes. You’re allowed to – it’s one of the wonderful things about being an adult. I raise my glass to you! Or I would if it weren’t already empty.

~Lucy

PS: If any of my LA friends know one of those pill-happy doctors – you know where to find me. There’s a bottle of Boone’s in it for you.

Viva La Burrito!

No More Apologies.

Women apologize for many, many things they should not, but my rant today is about apologizing for food.

It seems a cake cannot emerge from it’s frothy pink box without some woman at the table beginning the ritual.

“Oh, that’s so baaaaaad!”

“I shouldn’t”

“I’ll have to work out so hard after!”

“It’s evil!”

On and on, ad infinitum. Usually every female at the table will say one of the above, if only to prove to all the other women in the room that she’s sufficiently body dysmorphic enough to be in The Shame Club.

The Shame Club, the Club people like Perez Hilton have convinced us we should be in, because we dared to be female, dared to turn 19 and still be alive, dared to have cellulite, and dared to not vomit today.

You know what’s terrible? I have some suggestions, and funnily enough, cake isn’t on the list!

“Oh, that’s so baaaaaad!” – BAD is Hillary Clinton’s thighs being discussed instead of her policies.

“I shouldn’t” – I SHOULD’T perpetrate girl on girl hate crime by bashing any woman’s looks and discussing them as if they were the end all be all of her personhood.

“I’ll have to work out so hard after!” – I’LL HAVE TO really think about the fact that today is the 89^th anniversary of the 19^th amendment.

“It’s evil!” – EVIL things are honor killings, cancer and racism.

NOT CAKE!

Say it with me: I will not make a negative commentary about anything I eat. If it’s so deplorable, I will not eat it. The end.

~Lucy

LOLLost - I can haz?

So, the BHBs have been up to even more silly than usual (see regular activities such as shitty finger waves in hair, giggling about stupid romance novels starring people named Krondor, and talking about sex ad nauseum.)

We introduce you to a spontaneous contribution to the Universe - LOLLost. It started in the Jezebel commenters section, and is spreading it's benign evil forthwith. If you have no idea to what that refers, then you probably spend more time in life doing, you know, real things in the world that surfing on the internetz, and shame on you. LOLLost is inspired by the stupidness that is LOLCats.

A few of our humble contributions...


So visit the stupidity and make some of your own. You know you want to!

Unsolicited Advice: The Power of Smug Compels You!

I, Lucy, live in Los Angeles. Land of the La La, and home to the smuggest bitches in the world.

As I currently sit in a Web of Smug, I feel stabby thinking about the smug-and-runners who left me trying to clean off their sticky shame goo. I’m just trying to take a lunch order, ladies. I don’t need your fucking body issues!

Yes, I know you work out daily. I hear you discussing it for about 4 hours a day. I rarely hear you speak of anything else. It’s really interesting to hear all about it, every day. “You know?! I just need to eat Health-eeeeee!!!!!!! I can’t eat that stuff!!!!” OK. “No, thanks, I don’t need to order,” would have sufficed. You just can’t resist the urge to tell me about how wonderful and health-eeeee you are, can you? I’ll just look away when I see you inhale that box of chocolates.

And you, size 0 who sits and eats plates of raw vegetables every day. “I don’t order from restaurants because I gain weight easily.” Yeah. Bitch, I’ve seen you at restaurants, sucking down glass after glass of wine like you breathe through liquor gills. Oh, and you eat too. Bad food. Real food. A “No, thank you,” would have sufficed. I’m not interested in your issues and your pretend distain for restaurants that you go to all the time except for today, when you smugly inform me that you don’t do that.

I can’t keep up with the self-delusional rules, everyone. Things are, or they are not. Look, I’m a person who sometimes eats healthy, and sometimes I vacuum up some pad thai because it’s awesome. But I don’t pretend about it. I don’t smug-and-run the person who is just fucking trying to order lunch.

I don’t want your life story. I think it’s way more boring than mine anyway, since mine involves fun food and great sex.

Unsolicited Advice: Babes Don’t Let Babes Look Stumpy

As Old Man ’07 sputters in his hospital bed and increases his morphine drip, we beseech both you faithful readers to let certain trends die right along with him. It seems silly to have to point this out, but women should enjoy making themselves look pretty. However, as we see whenever we leave our Brutally Honest House every day, this simply isn’t so. Let us embrace 2008 as the Year of Pretty and forget these shameful examples of 2007’s ugly overload.

DIE DIE DIE trend #1: Unless you are Russell Crowe, just say no!

Gladiator sandals are a no. They are flat, make the leg look stumpy, and are fugly fugly no matter how many cute dresses you pair them with.

Is a striped tan something you really need? Did you think to yourself, “What this outfit needs is more Manliness!” when you got dressed this morning? We thought not.

Don’t do it ladies. Repeat after us, “What this outfit needs is some cute baby-doll heels to accentuate my butt and elongate my leg!”

Doesn’t that feel good?

DIE DIE DIE trend #2: You can’t spell Uggly without Ugg.

We don’t even want to hear the C word. There are many comfortable shoes – trainers, flats, kitten heels to name a few. There is no reason on God’s Holy Beautiful Earth to put on pair of Uggs.

They do not look cute with anything. No, not anything. We hear you thinking, “But they look cute with my…” NO! No No No! They do not look cute with anything! You look stumpy in them, no matter how long your legs are. If your legs are short, just turn around and go home because you now resemble a waddling daschund.

UGLY! STUMPY!! UGGGGGGG!!! OK… must… calm… down.

Really. The BHBs have your best interests at heart. Throw away the Uggs.

PS: This is your first and only warning. If we ever see you in pajama pants and Uggs, we may hit you. It’s a reflex - one we don’t care to try and stop.

DIE DIE DIE trend #3: Leggings make us stabby.

Many great things came out of the 1980s.

The Golden Girls.
Margaret Thatcher.
The Pet Shop Boys.

Many terrible things were spawned in the 1980s.

The Le Car.
Chernobyl.
And Leggings.

We hate leggings with an unholy fury normally only reserved for Hitler and asshole ex-boyfriends. They are not pants. They should not go under dresses. See all the ranting about stumpiness above and substitute “leggings” for “Uggs”.

Do any of you think this is attractive? Even the model looks bad in them. They create camel toe. Many times, they have nasty cheap lace at the bottom. They are not pants! They are evil and ugly and they died once, to the relief of all mankind. And they lead to tragedy…

...we actually saw stirrup pants in a copy of Vogue.

NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

You wouldn’t embrace any life advice Lindsay Lohan might give you, would you? Then don’t dress like her either! BURN THE LEGGINGS!

We hope these friendly and only slightly vehement fashion tips have helped you to see the light. Be kind to your bottom half – embrace the pretty in 2008!

Unsolicited Advice: Don’t Dress Little Caitlin like a Whore for Halloween

Dear Parents:
Many young women have a choice go-to for Halloween costumes which require little in the way of imagination – choose a thing and make it “sexy”, i.e. Sexy Nurse, Sexy Waitress, Sexy Cat, Sexy Ghost. It’s popular, it’s obvious, it’s… well… Sexy. [Tangent - We here at BHBs personally prefer choosing a thing and making it Dead/ Bloody i.e. Drowned Titanic Victim (complete with wet, sea-weedy hair), Dead Juliet, Lady in White (of ghost story lore.)] However, we have noted a disturbing trend of parents allowing their daughters to dress in this same, slutty way – and we say if your child is not too old to Trick or Treat, then they are too young to dress like a whore for Halloween.

Young women have many, many years of being hyper-sexualized to look forward to. They will be harassed, degraded, demeaned and don’t-worry-your-pretty-little-headed until they are ready to vomit, scream or sue – not necessarily in that order.

Maybe little 9 year old Palmer wants to be a Bratz for Halloween. Little Palmer also probably wants to drive a car and say “Shit Fuck Damn!” whenever she feels like it, too, but you are not letting her do those things. Just because it’s every Pedophile’s favorite holiday doesn’t mean she ought to wear the mini, thigh-highs, hip boots and halter top she has all picked out. [Ahem, yes, we have actually seen a small child in public – with parents – in that outfit.]

Do you want your child to end up like Paris? This is the slippery slope friends! Sure, it’s hip boots now – a little later it’ll be the bed of a pick-up and, “No, baby, not a condom – it feels better without!” A little dignity when they are young goes a long way.

Young Tallulah can be Hermione Granger – she’s a child who is smart and fights for justice in her spare time. Or Princess Leia (ditto what we said about Hermione). Or *sigh* a Disney Princess. Yes, they are uber marketing crap but at least they wear clothes.

Would you dress your little boy as a leather-harnessed gigolo? Uh-huh. Give the same consideration to your daughter.